


That You Might See Your Shadow : T-21

by StudioRat



Series: Branches and Fate [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon Related, Children, Fate, Gen, Goat Farm, Noble Sacrifice, Protective Siblings, References to Depression, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-25 12:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6194572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudioRat/pseuds/StudioRat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You must never allow the desert man in black armor to lay his hands on the sacred Triforce. <br/>The future depends on you, for you are Courageous.</p><p>Your face - is that your real face?</p><p>You've managed to make quite a number of people happy. But - shouldn't you be returning home as well?</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p>Setting:<br/>After and sideways of Majora. Link found a shard of a timeshift stone, and with that and the Ocarina and a lot of For Science!, has done Time Stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Smol Discussions, 'Maybe you need a little convincing'](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/180742) by blueganon. 



> Another smol story, built on the bones of a lightning storm.
> 
> I blame the conversation between @quietpastelcolours and @bonjiro and @blueganon for this one. I had to get this out of my head so I could go back to the SoME pages.  
> This was originally posted [on tumblr in barebones script format](http://underhersky.tumblr.com/post/132842658945/smol-drabble), as the imagery in my head was too intense for me to write out at the time.
> 
> I’m sorry in advance for any feels I might have dropped in the middle of the room.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 21

Link pressed his back against the sun-warmed rock and prayed for strength. The sounds from the box canyon below unsettled him deeply - everything about the situation felt wrong. Yet he knew he couldn’t interfere. 

He’d tried that already.

The world needed Ganondorf in it, for reasons known only to the gods. 

Link no longer wondered how Gan went to the bad, but how he managed to have any good in him at all, even as a child. His origins were anything but bright - but Link was determined to find a way to nurture that besieged light. 

Somehow. 

For Hyrule.

This time he’d traveled back further than ever before, stalking the fierce desert thieves for years on end. Link understood now, why the Gerudo stole, and why they guarded what little they had so violently. He watched from shadows at the edges of their lives, standing apart from the ebb and flow of war over the borders, the births and deaths of countless strangers, the indifferent dance of the stars as he waited for the King to be born.

The true King.

Link buried his hands in his pockets, running one thumb over the worn marble cat-stone.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the wind.

The wind ignored him, as it had a hundred thousand times before.

Even when they were young, Koume and Kotake held profound influence over their people, and an abiding hatred for Hyrule and all it represented. Unlike the Terminan witches, they were wickedness all the way down. They didn’t just enjoy shocking people, they enjoyed inflicting pain and suffering - and they were both greedy and ambitious. It wasn’t enough for them to lead the council of elder mothers. They craved absolute dominion - and they spent decades grooming a series of false puppet princes towards that end long before Gan was born. Each iteration lasted longer than the last, but every one of them ended in disaster. Undaunted, they erased all evidence of their failures and started over with another child. 

Or…  _ most _ of the evidence.

He’d lost count of how many times he’d tried to convince Nabooru to tell him - well, anything useful at all about Gan’s early history. Or her own. 

Now he understood why. 

Bad enough his mother fell so easily to temptation, worse still how thoroughly greed took root as the Rova remade her into a Prince. Like other princes before, shortly after the coronation which was supposed to invest them with all the King’s traditional powers, the madness came, and the tragic death of their lover. 

The six-year old Nabooru’s mother.

The Rova promised miracles. 

The King believed - and what emerged from the Spirit Temple three days later wasn’t even human anymore.

But Nabooru was six years old now. So the tragedy he couldn’t stop was almost over - and the one he  _ had _ to stop was about to begin. 

Far below, a young thief wrapped in sand-colored wool crept around thornbrush and boulders, following the King’s footprints. She’d hidden her long hair in veils, and she moved so carefully he’d have never seen her if he wasn’t wearing the mask of truth. He wished he could spare her what she was about to discover - but he’d tried that, too.

He clutched the marble cat in his fist, and prayed.

This was the fourth time he’d followed the King to this hidden lair during this endless stalk. He wasn’t sure which part was worse: that Ganondorf’s sire wasn’t entirely human, or that the no-longer-human King enjoyed the fact. And here he was, eavesdropping on it. He felt filthy inside and out. Yet what could he do? 

Eventually, the affair would seed a child, and the pregnancy would drive the King further yet into madness. Nabooru would have to stand witness to it - or else the King would succeed in destroying Ganondorf before he could ever begin. 

Link had tried that, too.

He flinched as the cries of blasphemous passions rose on the gentle winds of twilight, and prayed one day the nightmares would finally end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 20

A tiny voice raised its fury to meet the dawn, and at last, Link’s long wait was over. He pulled the painted mask over his face, and joined his voice to the other. Fitting, that it would begin in pain. Again.

He carved a new door in the wall, twirling the sword in wide arcs. Magic flared from the twisted blade, wrecking screens and pottery, and generally terrifying the women attending the fateful royal birth.

“ **Fear not,** ” he said, knowing when he said it they would feel exactly the reverse. Last time, he’d tried it the other way around - that only made them determined to fight, and he couldn’t help accidents when they fought him.

“An omen!”

“A spirit!”

“A demon!”

Seven-year old Nabooru, though, never admitted she was afraid of anything. She picked up a shield-drum painted with sky-and-fire colors in the pattern they called the Gods’ Teeth, and drew her short knife.

“ **Stand aside, little one,** ” he said, hoping his accent wasn’t too horrible. “ **I** **come for the sake of the People.** ”

“No Hylian ever does anything good for us,” she shouted. “Go away, ghost, or I’ll banish you, I will!”

Link twirled the sword in the air, cutting a neat hole in the roof and slicing to bits the stone which fell from the center. Women screamed, and someone tried to convince the King to find the strength to rise from the birthing chair.

**“I cannot be banished, little one, because I am always with you.”**

“Why?”

Link bowed, careful to keep the sword grounded as he did. “ **The golden gods sent me, for love of the People.** ”

That raised a new murmur, though still the women huddled around the Kings - true and false - as if their bodies would ever be enough to shield them.

“You’re lying,” said Nabooru, raising her blade in warning. “What are you really?”

He had no doubt whatever she would try to kill him if he couldn’t persuade her to stand down. She’d done it in a hundred different times already. Gan wasn’t crying anymore - he was almost out of time. The Rova would arrive soon, and he would fail again.

 **“I am the tears the good gods have wept for the People,”** he said. **“I am the dreams of those who have been, and the hopes of those who will be. And I am come for the child of prophecy.”**

“You can’t have him,” she screamed, stamping her bare foot on the stones. “My baby brother will be a good king!”

There - the woman in red was trying to sneak away in the chaos. 

Link smiled at Nabooru, and raised the ocarina to his lips. This time, everything would be different.

 

\- o - O - o -

 

A week later, Link dropped to his knees in the dust of the trade road, certain he could not possibly take another step. Gan mumbled in his sleep, biting Link’s shirt. He was hungry - of course he was hungry. The enchanted milk had run out early that morning, and Link had nothing more to give him.

He bowed his head, and tried not to think about the dried meat in his belt pouch. If Gan couldn’t eat, he shouldn’t either.

He tried not to think about the mask packed away safely in the saddlebags he carried over one shoulder. Almost two decades to wait before Epona would be foaled, let alone ready to carry even a small rider. Until then it would be his own feet - or those of a conquered god.

Link shivered, and pulled himself back to his feet. Any amount of pain was better than being seen as a monster.

He took one step, and then another, clutching the worn white marble in his fist, and prayed they would reach the goat farm before nightfall.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 20

Idrea wrapped a thick blanket around his shoulders, even though it was a mild summer evening, and pressed another bowl of tea into his hands. “Do you think you can keep food down yet?”

Link winced. “Sorry about that.”

Idrea smiled, and tried vainly to brush his hair out of his eyes. Why did women always do that?

“Let him be,” said Corfo, just barely louder than the creaking of his rocking chair. His daughter Lamis had fallen asleep in his lap, ‘helping’ her father hold the baby Gan. Who was also fast asleep. “Hate t’ think what he’s seen, and him no bigger than our Ensren.”

“I’m almost twelve,” said Link, a little desperately.

“Of course you are, poor dear,” said Idrea, sinking her hands into her deep apron pockets. She didn’t believe him. “Maybe some soup? Nice pumpkins and onions - no bones at all.”

“Thanks,” said Link. “I can pay-”

“I won’t hear of it,” snapped Idrea, turning with a whirl of skirts and stalking off to her kitchen. She had a whole wing of the little house to work  _ her _ magic, floored with fine blue slate and lit with dozens of clever mirrored lanterns.

“Mmm,” said Corfo. “Gone and offended her, you have. That, you will have to pay for, stranger.”

“Sorry,” said Link, setting aside the tea. “It’s just - I don’t know what to do now. For my brother, I mean. We can’t go back -”

“Out of the question,” sang Idrea from the kitchen. She had the ears of a highborn Hylian, for all she was round in every part.

“Mmm no, that certainly won’t do. Two little boys walking towards a war? If I was your father, I’d surely make you eat a whole brick of soap afore I let you do any such thing.”

“I was thinking,” said Link, “If I could buy some milk for the road, maybe we could go to Termina.”

“Termina!” Idrea’s tone left no doubt of her disapproval.

“Na- Er. Momma said she had a cousin that-”

“Termina,” said Idrea again, rattling dishes.

“You ever seen a map, boy?” Corfo murmured, though he looked halfway asleep himself.

“Lots,” said Link. “It’s not so bad. Just go west. Easier if we had a horse. Do you have a horse, sir?”

“Mmm, we got a mule. But we’ll be keeping her, as she’s our best hand aside of Ensren.”

Ensren, their son, who was shooing the chickens into their coop for the night. 

Ensren, who was  _ nine _ .

Link sighed, looking around the parlor. It was a nice little house, maybe even a little nicer than Malon’s, on account of its size and all the rugs, though he felt bad for thinking it.

But they weren’t rich, Corfo and Idrea.

Link pulled at the laces of his tunic and shirt, popping a few stitches in his haste. He wasn’t sure how much horses cost, but surely there were enough gems on the pectoral to buy a mule.

Corfo didn’t even open his eyes until Link knelt at his side. He blinked owlishly at the gold and gems, and eventually found his tongue. “You know her name?”

“The mule?”

“The cousin,” said Corfo.

“No - I mean. Yes. Aveil. Aveil is m- my brother’s mother’s… Cousin.”

“And I’m the Queen of Hyrule in exile,” said Idrea. “Let the babies sleep, and come have some soup before you waste away.”

“It’s true-” said Link, ashamed of how his voice squeaked in this body. He’d forgotten that.

Idrea planted her fists on her ample hips. “A dear boy like you was most certainly not raised by any cousin of that infamous pirate. Now stop trying to give away your mother’s jewelry before her ghost flies out here to box your ears for the disrespect, and try to eat some soup.”

“But…”

“Your brother ate his dinner like a good boy,” she said. “Seeing as you’re five times his age , surely you can be five times as good.”

“Twelve,” he sighed, getting to his feet.

“Do your best,” murmured Corfo, setting his chair in motion again. “You’ve a long day tomorrow.”

Link smiled. “So I can buy the mule?”

“You can feed her,” he said. “And the goats. Ensren will show you how it’s done.”

Link stared in disbelief. Gan  - impish thing that he was, already - cracked open his golden eyes, and yawned enormously.

So much for plans.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 10

“Wake up, Link, wake _UP_! The sun has been up for a whole hour and today the Beedle is coming. You don’t want to miss a Beedle day, do you?”

“Mmrrrf,” said Link, pulling the pillow over his head.

Which Gan promptly stole.

“Up- come on, up! Mom made nut cake too - With cream! - But you have to hurry or Ensren is gonna eat it all.”

“Not hungry,” said Link, turning to face the wall.

“Pfft,” said Gan, half-climbing the bunk to get a fistful of the blankets. So he could steal them. “If you never eat how are you ever going to be a _real_ big brother? Come on, Link, it’s a _Beedle Day_.”

“Fine,” said Link. Gan was _impossible_ any time the red-nosed peddler came through on his circuit. Or any time Gan _thought_ the peddler would come through. Or the library wagon. Or the wild-haired artificer and his wife the farrier. Or town guards during a training stint. Or a bet.

“If you don’t get up, I’ll let Taedra put honey in your hair.”

“You won’t,” he said, twisting to look over his shoulder.

“Will too. And she’ll love me for it. She’s been wanting to see if you match the honey-pot all week.” Gan had one arm hooked around the bunk’s oiled corner-post, eyes bright with mischief. He’d already braided his hair back, kept tidy with green-eyed snake combs, and he was wearing all four snake earloops. And some kind of - shawl?

“Are you wearing-”

“Don’t be stupid, Mom said it was ok.” Gan used his distraction to grab his ankle. “Come on, Link, or we’ll miss _everything_.”

They didn’t miss anything at all. In fact, all six of the children were waiting in the paddock by the road nearly two hours before the Beedle Wagon even rolled out of the forest. Like always.

That didn’t stop Gan from proposing a race to see who could touch the wagon first. Lamis leapt over the fence to claim the best starting place, and Taedra cheered for Link to win - though he’d never won a fair race in her life. Roan swaggered to the turnstile, climbing over it with a flourish. Ensren leaned against the fence with little Taedra, claiming he was still busy digesting breakfast.

Link took his place in line, trying to regain the spirit of the game. It was always hardest to remember how in the mornings. Gan started the count - and Lamis giggled. Roan started to whine, but the others shushed him, making Gan lose count. Link glared at Gan - who only smiled, and started counting.

He turned his attention to the road ahead, trying to focus on the freshness of the morning and the condition of the road. Hadn’t rained in a week, footing seemed good. Not that it would really matter. They all knew who would win - but this was one of their oldest games.

_**“Go-!”** _

Link launched into a flat run, letting his mind empty of everything but the road, the next step, the next breath. He shut out the sound of pounding feet passing to either side of him, closing his eyes to the morning, letting go of all desire.

And for a moment - he was free.

  
Then something hit him.

A wall, maybe, if one had suddenly decided to exist in the middle of the road.

The world went gray as he fell.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 10

“Link. Wake up Link. Come on, wake up -”

“Wake up, stupid. This isn’t funny anymore.”

“Don’t try to move him-”

“I’ll be careful -”

“It’s not about careful, Gan - get back, all of you.”

“Wake up, big brother - why isn’t he waking up Ensie?”

“He just stayed up past his bedtime I’m sure - Taedra - how about you go see if Da needs help carrying the Beedle Box?”

“But I don’t wanna-”

“Go help Da, I said.”

"You make me miss everything exciting."

"Go."

" _Fiiinnneee._ "

“Wake up - come on - you’re missing Beedle Day -”

“His hand just moved - I’m sure of it-!”

“Don’t tell lies, Roan.”

“But I’m not lying. Look - there he goes again - look - his eyes too -”

“Link-!”

“That’s right little brother, come on back. Not nap time yet.”

“Nnrgh-” said Link.

“Yeah. You’ve got it. Here, Roan, hold his hand, yeah? Good, stay here, keep talking to him till Da gets here ok?”

“But Ensrie-”

“But he’s  _ MY _ brother-”

"Not just yours. Come here Gan, just a minute. You don’t want to make him worse do you?”

“No but-”

“I said, come over here. And tell me exactly what happened. Quietly. Before Da gets here.”

“Ensrie-”

“I mean it Gan. You know how grownups are. You have to tell me what happened, so I can talk to Da. So we can fix it.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know. But you have to tell me.”

“I just wanted to let him win. But he wasn’t looking. The horses-”

“I know, but what did you  _ do- _ ? I can’t hear you.”

“I said, I don’t know. I just - the Beedle wasn’t on the driving box, but the horses were running - and drooling - and he wasn’t listening - and - I just - I had to make him  _ stop _ \- I didn’t mean to -”

“I know, shh, it’s ok. I know. We’re brothers, remember? You just have to remember you were born a little different than us. You have to be careful about wishes, Gan.”

“I won’t forget.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T-10

Link sat on the fence rail between Ensrie and Da Corfo, wrapped in a wool blanket even though it was summer. He was sweating, but the blanket made other people feel better. Like they were doing something. Even when there wasn’t anything that could be done.

Link understood that.

They’d decided together that Ma Idrea didn’t need to know what happened. Taedra would surely say something to her, but as long as the rest of them stood together, she’d let it go.

Eventually.

Lamis seemed to have forgotten already, but what was a little concussion when the Beedle had glass marbles with flowers caught in the middle, and ribbons with different colors on each side, and bright tempera powder all the way from Termina City.

Then again, she was only thirteen. An afternoon for her was an age, enough for whole dynasties to rise and fall in her games.

Link merely _looked_ thirteen.

The Beedle finally gave up trying to mediate the boys’ argument about which set of throwing knives was superior, and which set of painted wooden soldiers was a fitting consolation for whoever had to buy the second-best of the knives. He threw his hands in the air, declaring they’d rob him blind if they ever agreed on anything, and walked over to join the grownups.

“Pleasure to see you in good health, Corfo.”

“Likewise. Especially after your horses-”

“Damndest thing, that was - and my fillies are generally the sweetest things. I’d just stepped down for a moment - as you do, now and again, on a long road - and whoosh-! There they went, and I never was much for running.”

“Lucky then, our Link is good with creatures,” said Corfo.

The Beedle smiled. “Just so. And how is my favorite fairy-boy this summer?”

Link frowned. No one but Ensren and the Beedle ever called him that, and Ensren only teased him when he’d done something _really_ stupid. “Fine.”

“Fine is good, yes, but how would you like to be _more_ than fine, my boy?”

“Nothing wrong with bein’ fine,” Corfo murmured in his quiet way.

“Oh, certainly not, never would suggest it. Fine is fine, I always say. It’s just my way of sayin’ I brought something along special, just for this stop.”

Ensren shifted against the fence, glancing up at Link, and said, “Sure, and for a price as pretty as the day, too.”

The Beedle laughed, showing his empty palms. “A man has to make a living, by whatever road. But this - no, there will be no charge. You lot are practically family, young Ensrie. I’ve come down this road in every season since before you were even thought of, my boy.”

“That you have,” said Corfo. “Fortune grant we see you for as many more.”

“You’re a good man, Corfo. Idrea holds a treasure greater than any other I’ve seen in my travels, and that is the gods’ own truth,” said the Beedle. “But the _second-greatest_ treasure I’ve ever seen, I brought just for you, Link.”

“What is it?”

The Beedle smiled. “Do you want to see it? As soon as I laid eyes on it, I said, Beedle I said - you have to acquire that. Whatever the price, if you do not buy that at once, you might as well retire to the desolate wastes to live out the rest of your days as a hermit, I said.”

Corfo laughed. “You’d last a week, old friend.”

“Indeed I would, and meet my bitterest end at the close of it, I would. Which is why to avoid such a terrible fate is why I _did_ buy the treasure, and wrap it up special so no one would guess what a fabulous thing is was, and try to buy it from me until I could bring it to my favorite fairy-boy for his birthday.”

“It’s not my birthday,” said Link.

“It never is, is it?” The Beedle smiled, but shook his head as he turned away. “Young master Gan - fetch us that parcel from inside the wagon - you know the one, which I showed you after the illuminated _Bestiary_?”

Gan whooped with joy, handing off the box of soldiers to a startled Roan. Even Lamis stared like he’d gone mad, as Gan ran back into the wagon. Link let the blanket fall, looking to Ensren and Corfo, but they both shrugged. Whatever secret Gan had plotted with the Beedle, clearly neither had breathed a word of it to anyone else.

Link climbed down from the fence, standing beside the Beedle as Gan ran up the hill to meet them. Breathless, he handed the teardrop-shaped green-and-gold parcel to the Beedle, who bowed like a gleeman and presented it to Link.

Link hated to even touch it, but seven pairs of eyes were watching to see what he did next. So he pulled the string away and laid the parcel on the grass to unwrap it. The brightly patterned brocade on the outside gave way to yards and yards of fine blue linen within, which Ma Idrea would surely want for curtains.

But that wasn’t the treasure.

Link almost choked when he unwrapped the purple handle, and counted twenty before he could go on. If he took any longer, he was worried Gan would bite clean through his tongue with the strain of trying to stay quiet. Even Roan was silent for once, standing at Gan’s shoulder, and Lamis beside him.

“Not a sword,” he said, unwinding the last twist of cloth.

“A net,” said Roan. “What’s so special about a net?”

“It’s _pretty_ , stupid,” said Lamis.

“Never thought in my life I’d see true Cloudisle silk,” said Corfo.

“Well,” said the Beedle. “What do you think, fairy boy? Will it do?”

Link lifted the beautiful butterfly net so the wind would fill it, completely at a loss for any other response.

“Will it do _what?_ ” Roan whined. “Why won’t anyone explain what’s special about a net?”

The Beedle clicked his tongue in censure. “Didn’t you ever notice your big brother was something special?”

“Well, yeah. So he’s little. So what?”

Ensren sighed, and by unspoken agreement, he and Corfo and Beedle herded Roan and Lamis back to the wagon to finish selecting treasures.

“You did this,” said Link, when they were well down the hill.

Gan shrugged, but his eyes gave him away. “I just told him a story. He did all the important stuff.”

“What story,” said Link, resting the sunbleached birchbark frame on his shoulder.

Gan looked away, his long red braids swinging in the breeze. “Remember the wondertales you used to read to me, before I could read for myself? I told him the one about the forest spirits and the fairies.”

Link felt ice down his spine. "There wasn't a story about forest spirits-"

"Not in the books, no."

“Why?”

“Because, you're my brother,” said Gan, digging up a clump of duckgrass with the toe of his boot. He really did look ridiculous with that garish orange shawl pinned at his shoulders like a cloak made by someone who didn’t know what cloaks were for. “Now you can catch a fairy of your own.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 5

Link padded down the twisting hallway towards Gan’s room, careful to avoid the squeaky floorboard where the stairs began. There were only six steps, but they were both deep and tall, to suit their owner. Corfo had taken Link aside two years ago, after Gan’s last growth season, which ended with him teasing Ensren about not being the biggest anymore. They’d walked all the way to the east pasture, talking about nothing, until nearly twilight.

Then Corfo asked how tall his son was likely to get.

Link told him. 

What else could he do?

They called on Ensren and his wife at neighboring farm on the way back. They started digging for the foundation posts of the new wing the very next day.

Gan loved his birthday present that year, even though it wasn’t a surprise at all, and he’d even been conscripted to help carry and set joists and beams. Ma Idrea teased him, pretending to complain about the boys turning her house into a castle, but it was her idea to make the addition round, with a flat roof for Gan’s looking-glass. And she did sew the banners, though it was Lamis’ idea to paint them.

At fifteen, Gan still loved playing pretend with Taedra and Link, and Ensren’s twins, though these days he wore mostly black ‘just in case’ he needed to be their wicked sorcerer or captive prince. And they loved it - even bringing their friends into the game on holidays. Roan liked to pretend he was too grown-up for games, but nobody ever believed him. He was usually the strategist behind the twins’ pranks anyway. 

Link didn’t like those games much anymore.

Gan’s door was open - he was in a good mood today, then. Link held his breath as he snuck through the door, careful not to jostle his burden too much. It wasn’t much of a gift, but he couldn’t let the day roll past without giving him  _ something _ .

“It’s a good thing you weren’t born a thief,” Gan rumbled without looking up from his books. His voice had started dropping last winter, and he took every advantage of the fact.

“You’re no fun,” said Link, circling around the latest experiment taking up half the room to reach Gan’s desk. Gan had his hair up in a high horsetail today, tied with wide mustard-gold and sky-blue ribbon exactly matching the garish floral print of his lace-edged neckcloth and the lining of his vest. At least the fashionable half-cloak draped over the back of his chair was merely solid blue wool on one side and gold silk on the other.

Lamis would approve. She’d probably even bring him a nosegay of cornflowers to match.

Gan laughed, tipping back his enormous horseapple wood chair onto two legs as he set his pen back in the inkpot. “I’m plenty of fun. Ask anyone. What’d you find?”

Link bit his lip, and set the delicate wire cage on the desk. The desert dayfly caught inside fluttered its iridescent wings, spiraling up to the top of its cage, and floating back down to rest on the clump of spiderwort Link had dug up for it.

Gan stared at it for a long moment, golden eyes unreadable. “How?”

Link shrugged, nodding toward the ant empire Gan kept on the shelf by his massive bed. “Same as always. My net has magic.”

Gan snorted, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “It doesn’t, but maybe _you_ do. I have something for you too, Link.”

Link frowned up at him. “It’s  _ your _ birthday.”

“Which means I’m king today, and you have to do what I say. It’s the rules. So bring your stool over so I can show you.”

Link stood on tiptoe to see what Gan had been working on. Like his notes on the vast pinboard hung between the arched windows, the book on Gan’s desk was full of elaborate charts and tiny letters. This one was in Hylian - but when he turned the page, the very next drawing was an elaborate mechanism he knew too well. He ran his fingers over the ink, but the toothed gears remained.

“That’s just a new kind of lock, nothing very interesting,” said Gan, dropping his chair back to the floor with a resounding thump. “Go on, get your stool.”

He was impossible when he was excited about something.

Link trudged across the room for his tall chair - Lamis made it for him, sized exactly right so he could sit just as high as Gan whenever he wanted. Of course, being Lamis, she had to paint it. Brightly.

At least he’d managed to persuade her not to make it look like a tree, even if it was a funny idea.

Gan set the dayfly cage safely against the wall, with just the edge of it in the afternoon sunlight, admiring its beauty while Link got settled.

“Did you talk to Da about next week?”

“Yeah,” said Link. “Taedra will do my chores as long as I bring back a honeycomb for her, and Ensren will do yours if you promise to help with the pumpkins, and the squash bugs.”

“Good,” said Gan, flipping his book closed and shuffling his papers off to the far corner with a grin. “I hid a jar of honey in the jewel box last time the Beedle came through, so we don’t have to go through town at all.”

Link frowned. “But I thought you wanted to see the fort-”

“Sure, but I found something even better,” he said, prying up the lid of his desk, careful not to disturb the dayfly as he retrieved a single sheet of parchment. “There’s an old shrine just three days’ ride south of here. Everyone forgot about it when the river moved ages ago, but a caravan got lost in those woods a few years ago, and they saw the old gate-posts.”

Link peered at the map - a faded thing, but nobody who knew the province could mistake it. Hundreds of little farms were carefully marked out in brown ink, mountains in a black that had gone purple wherever there was water damage. At the very south edge, new marks in chalk showed a winding path over wooded hills, and Gan’s careful hand noting which journal went with the map.

“What’s it for?”

Gan shrugged. “Probably somebody's ancestor. But maybe we’ll be lucky, and it will be a hill-spirit, or a forest spirit, or maybe even a fairy.”

Link smiled. “That would be nice.”

Gan rolled his eyes, and prodded Link’s shoulder. “It would be more than nice, and you know it. Is lunch ready yet?”

“Breakfast was only two hours ago,” said Link, pretending to be exasperated like Idrea.

Gan was immune. “So?”

Link laughed, hopping down from his stool. “You have to pretend you’re surprised.”

Gan whooped, catching up the dayfly cage as he stood. “Come on then, let’s take this little queen to her new castle.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 5

Idrea met them at the end of the hall, bright and round as ever. “You look especially handsome this morning, my little prince.”

Gan bent to kiss the top of her head, laughing. “Never so handsome as you, Momma. What’s for breakfast?”

“You had breakfast already,” she said, planting her fists on her hips as she stood aside to let them pass. “ _ And _ pie.

“No, certainly not. That was yesterday,” he teased. “You must be losing your sight Momma, for surely that was my big brother Link who picked the lock on your pie cabinet and ate your strawberry pie down to the last crumbs. For which reason I have been designing a new lock for you  _ all morning _ .”

Link groaned. “I only had one slice, and  _ you’re _ the one who picked the lock.”

Idrea snorted. “You smell like strawberries, my son.”

“Coincidence,” he said with a winning smile, marching off towards the garden door. 

Idrea sighed, petitioning the golden gods for patience - but she was laughing as she said it.

Link helped her set the table while Gan was busy coaxing the dayfly out of her cage and into the screened south garden. Another project of Gan’s design, to have fruit for their table all year, and keep the birds from getting first pick of it. Every year he proposed another improvement to it, until it ran along two sides of the little house and it took them three days to build the straw walls around it every winter.

Gan wanted to build an even bigger one, with glass walls they could change out for screen ones when it was cold. Corfo said no, it was too expensive, and they argued fearsomely when Gan proposed taking the snake jewels to Termina City to sell. Corfo said it wasn’t his decision to make, their mother’s jewels would be divided between the brothers when they were old enough to marry, and that was that.

Link stayed with Ensren the rest of the week, so he wouldn’t be tempted to tell the truth.

The thought brought the man, with his rose-cheeked wife and whirlwind children. Their enthusiasm was infectious, and Link joined them in a riotous game of chase while the real grownups talked until the roast cucco pies were ready.

If only they could stay like this forever, life would be perfect.

Gan claimed his usual low bench at the end of the table, folded lotus-fashion so he didn’t loom quite so enormously tall. Link knelt on his own bench around the corner to his left, next to Ensrie’s twins. Next came Ensrie and his wife, and their youngest - who wouldn’t be the youngest much longer. 

Corfo raised a toast to their health, sending Roan into the cellar for more cider to celebrate. Lamis sat at her father’s right hand, with her sweetheart from the village. Idrea sat at her husband’s left, when in fact she could be convinced to sit at all, and Taedra next to her. Taedra’s three best friends filled the space between her and Roan, at Gan’s right hand. As always. Roan was winter to Gan’s summer, slender where Gan was broad, pale as he was dark, and even at fifteen he was only a head taller than Link. A fact he hated most passionately.

They all ate until they were stuffed silly, and then Idrea pressed them to eat still more, same as she did every quarter-day. And when no one could stand the thought of another bite, the conversation turned to news from town. Roan was mad for the army, and his store of gossip and ‘Lieutenant so-and-so said’ never seemed to run dry anymore. He even used the opportunity to press his suit to go to the officer’s academy next year, though Gan smacked the back of his head in rebuke for trying to steal his day. Roan sulked, threatening to sell Gan’s present back to the Beedle - so Gan told him to do it, and use the money to buy himself more brains.

Ensren shared news on the progress of the new water wheel, and Lamis presented Gan with a whole bolt of new cloth, woven all over with blue-green labyrinths and white flowers with red-orange hearts. She said it was woven with a new kind of loom, ten times as fast, but which took twenty times as long to thread, so it was easier just to build a new loom than to change the pattern it was set to weave all the time.

Taedra brought Gan books - a whole stack of novels, cheaply printed and loosely bound, but brought all the way from Termina City just that week. Ensren, on the other hand, gave him only two books, both old and plain. But Link watched Gan’s face when he peered inside, and knew at once he lied when he boomed his enthusiasm for foreign clockworks and exotic plants.

They were magic books.

Idrea and Corfo presented no gift at all, declaring indeed, Gan was old enough now he should be starting to bring his parents presents instead. Everyone laughed - Gan as much as anyone, and he claiming that a whole week free from chores was the best present of all, and one day he’d give them the same holiday a hundred times over.

Corfo laughed. “And what would I do with two years of idleness?”

“Anything you like,” said Gan.

Corfo shrugged. “We do that now.”

Gan rolled his eyes. “I’m not a baby. You can’t convince me untangling goats from fences and chasing down escaped cuccos is high adventure anymore. Wouldn’t you like to see Termina City for yourself? Swim in the great sea? Go to a real theatre - and not just the solstice pageants?”

Idrea smiled. “What need have we to go to the trouble of going to see the world, when you dear children bring the world to us?”

“Just so,” agreed Corfo. “And without the trouble of strange beds and jostling about with strangers. You’ll understand when you’re grown.”

“I won’t,” said Gan, setting his jaw stubbornly. “Anyways I wanted to talk to you about the holiday. Since you’re not going anywhere-”

“No,” said Corfo, folding his hands over his belly.

Gan rolled his eyes. “I didn’t even finish, Da-”

“You don’t need to, answer’s no,” said Corfo, genial as anything. “Did you feed Molly and the rest before you sat down to your leisure?”

Gan frowned. “Roan was supposed to do that today-”

“I traded with Taedra,” said Roan.

“Did not,” Taedra snapped.

“Your Da needs the mules next week,” said Idrea, grinning too brightly. “And that’s the end of it. Now that we’ve eaten, you can take the slops to the yard on your way to the barn. Leave that cloak though, or I won’t be the one cleaning it next.”

“But Momma-”

“Don’t disrespect your mother. Hop to, boy.”

A hush fell over the table as Gan pushed back his bench and stood. Link swallowed hard - he knew that look. Gan popped the catch on his cloak-hooks, folding the cloth with barely suppressed violence. Corfo merely sat back in his chair, entirely unruffled by the fury in those golden eyes. Gan shoved the wool into Link’s hands and stomped out of the room without another word.

He didn’t slam the door, but rather left it hanging wide open as if he didn’t trust himself not to.

The others exchanged nervous glances in the silence, but Link clutched the cloak to his chest and listened to Gan thumping his way across the porch.

“Da,” he said, when he could unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“Shhh,” said Idrea, with a hushed giggle.

The other kids frowned harder, trying to puzzle out what had just happened.

Link counted twenty breaths until the squeak and rattle of the barn door cut through the silence. Idrea bit her lip, gathering her skirts to stand. Link couldn’t wait any longer, he scrambled off the bench, running to the open door with his heart in his throat, clutching the cloak tightly.

Gan was nowhere to be seen. But the slops bucket lay on its side in the middle of the path right in front of the gaping maw of the bright red barn. 

Link took one step onto the porch, and the afternoon rang with a war cry he’d hoped never to hear again. He dropped the cloak, stumbling to the far railing. The others poured out of the house which confused murmurs - except for Corfo and Idrea, who came to stand on either side of Link as thunder made flesh galloped from the barn, Gan astride bareback with his fists buried in the long black-and-silver mane.

Roan was the first to recover his wits, and he leapt the porch rail, hollering like mad. Taedra followed after, and the whirlwind twins, as Gan raced across the near pasture, scattering goats and chickens with reckless glee.

Ensren whistled. “Where did you ever find a horse like that, Da?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “Your mother did.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 5

Gan refused to believe Link hadn’t helped arrange his birthday gift, and Link couldn’t bear to tell him the details that might convince him otherwise. Nor would he believe that dear sweet Ma Idrea had a distant cousin who made her living as a horse thief. As far as he was concerned, he was the only and best thief in the whole family, ever.

They reached the gate of the old shrine in four days, not three, but Gan was so pleased with his monstrously huge horse in every other way that Link didn’t even bother trying to tell him he wasn’t fooled by Gan’s grumbling. He hadn’t even picked a name for the creature yet, trying out a new one every hour, and even asking the horse for his opinion. 

Link changed the subject when Gan tried to ask  _ him _ .

They camped just outside the ruined gates, but less out of respect than necessity. Inside the rambling border of broken stones, the woods grew low and close, full of briars and triproot. Gan’s enthusiasm overflowed - he was so full of theories about what they might find, that he could barely concentrate long enough to finish drawing copies of the worn inscriptions at the foot of the gate columns. Link helped him pace out the dimensions of the old walls, collecting and labeling samples from every kind of plant growing on either side - even common ones, just in case they were different.

Two days later, Gan was finally ready to look for the heart of the shrine - and Link carried the lantern with greater cheer than he expected. The sooner they found the reason the shrine was here, the sooner they could leave. Unless it was a great fairy, which in that case, the sooner they discovered her, the sooner they could find out how to restore her spring.

At first they thought there wasn’t much of the building left, until Gan fell through a patch of ground Link had just walked over. He wasn’t mad about it, even though he twisted his ankle in the fall, and had to hop all the way back to camp. Once he was asleep with a good dose of red potion, Link tucked the little bag of snake jewelry into his arms and prayed that the magic would know what to do. He waited for almost an hour, but he didn’t see anything happen - not even Gan waking up in the night like he usually did. So he snuck away in the dark, using the mask of truth to find his way.

Where Gan fell, there was a hidden stairway. Or an overgrown one. The air below was damp, and he felt a flicker of hope that it was a forgotten fairy spring. But there were spiders - too many to fight past - so he turned back to camp, wondering if he should have dug up the  _ other _ mask.

Just in case.

The next day, Gan dressed in his working clothes, and together they cleared away the overgrowth until twilight. They’d already been gone a week - but Gan swore he’d confided their plan to Ensren, and he would cover for them another week and a half as long as they helped with the pumpkin harvest  _ and _ the preserving. For both houses.

So they stayed, and Gan’s cheer made the hard work seem like just one more elaborate game, exactly suited to their shared love of exploration and riddles. Not that Gan had managed to translate much of the inscriptions - they were far too damaged, and he said they used strange rules, so words might not mean what they seemed to.

Gan took care of the spiders himself, in the end. Link wasn’t sure whether he was more excited about clearing the entrance to the below, or that his fire-spell worked on such a grand scale. The deeper they explored, the more Gan used his secret magic to open the paths forward, until at last, they found a room that was different than all the rest. The walls were a different kind of stone than everything else, and they seemed to have a faint purple light of their own. It was hard to tell - because the floor shone like noon, scribed all over with symbols Link recognized from Gan’s magic books.

Gan recognized them too, and he danced like a child again, ecstatic with the discovery. 

Like the rest of the shrine, Gan could only read half the inscriptions, but the purpose of them was clear, even to Link. At the center of the room, suspended in midair for so long there were cobwebs stretching out from it in every direction, hung part of a strange mask.

Its single remaining eye seemed to follow Link wherever he stood, and he couldn’t decide whether the top was meant to be a crown, or horns. Maybe both. Gan crept across the inscriptions on the floor, intent on examining the carvings covering every part of the strange mask.

 

Link couldn’t follow.

 

He tried - but at the second ring, the magic flared, and made a wall of blue light that turned his stomach inside out. Gan ignored his distress, enthralled by the draw of the mask. He stared at it a long time, but he didn’t touch it.

Link prowled around the seal-circle, looking for a weakness in the magic - but there was none.

“Gan, it’s time to go,” he said at last.

“Not yet - I’ve almost solved the riddle. Just another minute,” said Gan.

“We can come back tomorrow. It’s not going anywhere, yeah?”

Gan looked up, startled. “What did you just say?”

“I said, we can come back tomorrow.”

“No,” said Gan, frowning. “That’s not what you said at all. You used different words.”

“It’s not going anywhere?”

Gan shook his head, taking a few steps away from the mask. “No, that’s all wrong. Say it the same way you did before.”

“I don’t understand - you’re being weird, Gan. Come on, let’s go, yeah?”

Gan clapped his hands together, taking three long steps towards Link with a hungry look. “Yes - like that -  _ tell me what those words are _ .  _ Yeah? _ ”

Link stuffed his fist in his mouth, and told himself not to scream. 

Fifteen years, and now -  _ now _ he had to slip, and fall into the speech of the desert.

“It’s ok Link, you can tell me - we’re brothers, remember? And I’m not a baby anymore. I know there were bad things, before we escaped to the farm. I’ve seen them.”

“You have?”

“Yeah,” said Gan, stepping through the blue wall like it wasn’t even there. Which, for him, maybe it wasn’t. “I’ve always had magic, as long as I can remember. Roan didn’t really learn to read first.  _ I did _ . I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to lose the pictures you showed me when you read to me.”

“You can have all that and more,” said a voice like silk and razors.

Gan’s eyes flared wide, but he didn’t turn. “Yeah?”

“You are wasted on such a petty, insignificant life. You should bestride the world, my lord, raise great works and greater armies - change the very fabric of history.”

“Gan,” whispered Link, catching one of Gan’s hands in both of his own. “Don’t listen to him. He’s lying to you.”

Gan bent low, whispering as the shadows coiled behind him, “It’s ok.”

“No it’s not-! Can’t you see it?” Link pulled vainly at his hand. He might as well try to move an oak. He shouted in frustration. “Come  _ ON _ !

“Ignore that mortal trash. You are made for glory my lord - he’s holding you back.”

“Hn,” said Gan, pulling away, and stepping backwards so the wall of blue light parted around his boots and made him look hard and sinister.

“Gan - let’s go home. Home, Gan -”

“Not this time,” said Gan, shaking his head. “You go - run as fast as you can. See if you can touch the barn first, I dare you.”

“No! Not without you.  _ Come on _ Gan - let’s go-!”

“Not today, Link. Today we start a different game.” He smiled, tilting his head to one side like he was listening to something. But the terrible voice didn’t speak again.

“What are you talking about?” Link tried to reach for his hand again, but Gan folded his arms, looking down his long nose at like he’d become nothing more than an odd sort of bug. “Come on, before the bad spirit gets you-

“It’s ok, Link,” he said, and his expression softened. He dropped his voice, though there was no one to hear his confession but Link, and the spirit of this cursed shrine. “I think… I think this is why I was born so much bigger and stronger. This is my destiny, you know?”

“Gan, please -” Link begged, his heart hammering against his ribs.

Gan tilted his head the other way, the ghost of a smile tugging at one corner of his lips. “Will you play one last game with me, Link? For old times?”

“Anything-” Link swore, and meant it. “Just - walk away from the bad spirit, ok? Come home.”

“You have to promise you’ll follow all the rules, ok? No cheating. Even when it’s really hard.”

“I will,” said Link, jumping to get a fistful of Gan’s faded red shirt. “Just please - we need to get out of here, Gan.

Gan shook his head, taking another step back. The wall of blue light flared, and hummed, changing into a kind of lacework that reminded him of the labyrinth cloth Lamis bought. “I’m only going to tell you the rules once, so listen really good, ok? It’s really important that you follow  _ all _ the rules or you’ll lose.”

“I don’t  _ care _ if I lose as long as you come with me -

“I can’t right now. It’s the rules,” said Gan, as lightly as if he was trying to weasel his way out of dusting. “Just like it’s the rules that you run first. Not home - just run as far and as fast as you can, just like you did that Beedle Day, and don’t look back. Ok? You’ll be good at this part. Just don’t look back, like when we were in the woods earlier, with all the roots, remember? You don’t want to fall down.”

Link wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Ok. Run. And then what, Gan? Will you catch me?”

“When you’ve run so far you can’t run anymore, keep walking until you find a Great Fairy, just like the stories. Tell her you need directions to the Sacred Maiden, ok? And when you find  _ her _ , do everything she tells you, ok? She knows how to play this game too, and she’ll help you be  _ really good _ at it.”

“I don’t want to play with some stupid maiden,” Link shouted, fear and fury blurring his vision as tears ran down his cheeks. “I want to go  _ home _ , Gan. Let’s go home and forget we ever came here, and everything will be ok again.”

Gan ignored him. “You need to pay attention Link - this is the most important part, ok?”

“Gan - the shadows-”

“It’s ok,” he said, but it wasn’t. The shadows coiled around his feet, crawling up his legs - and Gan just _stood there_. And let it happen. “Are you listening really good?”

Link scrubbed his sleeve across his face, and thought about swearing. “I’m listening.”

“You have to be  _ really brave _ to win the game, Link. No matter what happens,” he said, and his voice gained a familiar, terrifying depth. Like thunder and eternity. “You have to keep playing, and you have to win, no matter how hard it is to follow the rules. I’m counting on you, Link. Find the Sacred Maiden and the Blessed Sword, just like in the old stories, and win the game.”

“Where will you be,” he said, though it didn’t really matter. 

“I’ll be there, Link. It’s just like when we followed the songs on the wind - you were always good at that game, remember?”

“You said we were going to play the game together,” Link knew it was petty, but what else could he do? The magic had him - unless Link could persuade him to cast it off again, he’d already failed. Again.

“We are, Link. It will be the best game,” he said, and Link wanted to believe him. “I will be strong, and you will be brave, and the Maiden will be clever. You’ll see.”

“Why are you letting the shadows touch you? Use your magic, please-” he begged.

“I am using it, Link. You’ll understand someday.”

“I won’t-!”

Gan laughed as the shadows boiled up, shrouding him entirely from view. “Well, first you have to play the game - you’re going to save the world, Link. But you have to follow all the rules. Do you promise?”

“But - Gan- what’s happening to you-?” Link cried, as a pair of glowing golden eyes opened in the shadows.

“You have to promise me,” he said, and his teeth shone in the darkness, wicked sharp. “Are you ready?”

 

“No-”

 

“Set?”

 

“Gan-” 

 

“ **_PROMISE-!_ ** ”

 

“Ok-! Ok -! I’m sorry - I promise! I’ll play your stupid game - but - Gan - what’s happening -? _WHAT IS HAPPENING TO YOU?_ **_GAN –!_** ”

  
“ **_GO-!_ ** ”

 

_**\- o - O - o -** _

 

_**Fin.** _


End file.
